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Fantastic Four
EMAILPRINTTwentieth Century Fox Film Corp.
Mixed or average reviews
Based on 35 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 167 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Action | Adventure | Fantasy | Sci-fi
Written by:
Michael France
Mark Frost
Jack Kirby (comic book & characters)
Stan Lee (comic book & characters)
Directed by: Tim Story
Release Date:
Theatrical: July 8, 2005
DVD: December 6, 2005
Running Time: 105 minutes, Color
Origin: USA / Germany
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for sequences of intense action, and some suggestive content
Starring Ioan Gruffudd, Michael Chiklis, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Julian McMahon, Kerry Washington, Stan Lee, and Maria Menounos
Marvel's first family of comic superheroes takes the world by storm as the longest running comic book series in history comes to the big screen. (20th Century Fox)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Barbershop Taxi
GAMES: Fantastic Four (Xbox)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
It's done with an agreeable confidence and flair, the actors all fit comfortably in their roles and the effects are fun.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Blessedly unimportant, Fantastic Four cruises along on modest yet genuine comic-book pleasures.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
A funky, fun film version of the famous Marvel superhero concoction, one of the earliest of the revisionist wave of supes and in some ways the most lovable or at least the most knowable.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
In a summer of low movie expectations and worse results, Fantastic Four is a not-so-bad mindless bit of camp escapism that doesn't try to eclipse its dime-store comic book roots.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Frustrating because it doesn't seem far removed from a wholly enjoyable motion picture, but the tempo's off, beats are missed, and the production ends up sounding out-of-tune.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
I don't think it will seriously disappoint longtime fans, but it made me itchy as I watched it unfold in ways that the comics never did when I read them in the '60s.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Staff (Not credited)
Michael Chiklis (of the cop show "The Shield") steals the movie as the agonized Thing.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust
Fails to be anything more than a mild summertime diversion. Based on the Marvel comic book, it's a prototypical air conditioner movie.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
There's nothing terribly fantastic about this ho-hum futuristic foray.
Read Full Review >Variety Joe Leydon
A wildly uneven, sporadically slapdash action-adventure that amuses in fits and starts.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
This clumsy, cheesy, chintzy adaptation, with its F/X that look dated the moment you see them, is like something left over from the '60s.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Even if you can get past the acting -- and in the case of the beautiful, blank Alba, that's asking a lot -- the film just sits there, not exactly torturous, but never very exciting, either.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
It's fun to watch superheroes who aren't quite at ease with their abilities, but "The Incredibles" - last year's similarly themed animated film - is livelier and funnier.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
It's a waste of classic material. Rent "The Incredibles" and see what should have been.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Fantastic Four doesn't expand on, or even illuminate, anything much beyond the most basic theme of what it feels like to be an adolescent misfit. This is a comic-book movie that actually makes an effort not to go over kids' heads.
Read Full Review >Empire Olly Richards
Fleetingly enjoyable in very short bursts, this is the most cynically constructed event movie in recent memory, its heart purely in its wallet. A fantastic bore.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
Compared with the psychological probing and spiritual brooding of "Batman Begins," Fantastic Four is proudly dumb, loud and inconsequential.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky
A comic-book movie unashamed of its roots, meaning it's unabashed about being silly, overwrought nonsense, which works to its benefit--so much so that you're almost rooting for it by the end.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar
The release of Fantastic Four marks the beginning of the end for movies based on Marvel Comics' upper tier of characters.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
After this mediocrity, no one's even going to remember Roger Corman's godawful bargain-basement 1994 version. Which, on second thought, had a lot more heart that this one.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
It needed a star like Clooney at its center, and a character actor like Alan Rickman as Dr. Doom. You don't expect realism from a comic-book movie, but you do want the characters to seem larger than life.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
There's nothing remotely fantastic about this Fantastic Four.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Scott Foundas
Directing seems an unduly elegant term for what Hollywood hack du jour Tim Story (Barbershop, Taxi) does here -- the action scenes are so choppily constructed that their excitement disappears faster than the Invisible Woman.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Matt Singer
The action sequences reek of drudgery rather than adventure, and with the exception of Chiklis's remarkably soulful performance beneath 60 pounds of orange Thing makeup, all of the characters are flatter than their two-dimensional counterparts.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
An overinflated B-movie with no grace, no subtext, no wit, and featuring beefcake/cheesecake actors who look like they've been plucked from the soaps.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
The result is a movie groping for a comic tone while its FX machinery spews vast clouds of visual gibberish.
Boston Globe Wesley Morris
What the movie lacks most is a real sense of adventure.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
They take on special powers that the filmmakers are incapable of making interesting, partly because the characters are ciphers, and partly because the story is listless and uninventive.
Read Full Review >Premiere Aaron Hillis
From less a purist's standpoint than a seeker of serviceable junk food, this comprehensive waste of time is too bouncy to be an "Elektra" bummer, but should make Marvel mascot Stan Lee think twice about burning another lucrative bridge with unintentional hilarity.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
A perfect storm of wooden acting, hackneyed direction, inane scripting and laughably cartoonish special effects produces a shapeless mess more wearyingly stupid than arch-villian Dr. Doom is evil.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The really good superhero movies, like "Superman," "SpiderMan 2" and "Batman Begins," leave Fantastic Four so far behind that the movie should almost be ashamed to show itself in the same theaters.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 5.5 (out of 10) based on 167 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Keenan S gave it a4:
An insipid, and painfully stupid comic book flick. This film quite simply; is not fantastic on any level. From the numerous cliches, to the stupid action scenes, to the awful dialogue and humor, Fantastic Four falters under the weight of its ineptitude and fails to entertain. You have much better options when it comes to comic book films like; Watchmen, Sin City, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, or the Spider-Man trilogy. Go see one of those instead.
Al O. gave it a0:
I could have crapped a better script.
Nick V. gave it a3:
Everything ranged from mediocre to bad in this movie. Jessica Alba and the guy who played Mr. Fantastic were hilarious every moment they weren't mean to be in their roles.
Jerk Guy gave it a3:
I’ve never been the biggest fan of Fantastic Four, and this film didn’t sway me.
Tyler G. gave it a0:
A just absolutely horrible film, no plot, the action is almost non-existent, it sucked worse than any movie I could possibly imagine, I would rather watch the CGI animated Barbie Doll movies than see this again. I don't recommend it to anyone. This movie sucks.
Stephen C. gave it a6:
The story is good, but the only part I liked was the one action sequence
Jay D. gave it a3:
The writers of this script need to be taken out and shot! Casting is likewise terrible, in that Jessica Alba out acts the vast majority of actors in this film. I don't recommend this movie to anyone over the age -of let's say- eight.
